


True North

by stellarscope



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Eventual Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Inner Dialogue, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, Longing, M/M, Rediscorvering Feelings, Temporary Amnesia, everyone lives au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:34:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21708346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarscope/pseuds/stellarscope
Summary: This hazy outline of a brunette boy clarified almost instantly in thousands of images in his memory.
Relationships: Richie Tozier/Eddie Kaspbrak
Kudos: 14





	True North

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this was an opener i wrote for an old richie/eddie rp that isn’t active anymore. i really liked my writing on this though and i might continue it on my own if there’s interest. 
> 
> all the losers are alive at the jade, everyone but richie is only mentioned at this point. i only have mentioned characters tagged rn but the others will follow if i continue this! 
> 
> also, i apologize if the formatting is whack anywhere- i’m posting from mobile
> 
> if you wanna message me on tumblr my fandom-y sideblog is grapesodas!

Richie would really like to say he’d known all this was coming. That he’d felt some inkling in the back of his mind or some longing for six soulmates lost rather quickly to time.  
But there wasn’t, he hadn’t. 

Well, maybe it wasn’t entirely so black and white. 

He knew that he remembered the general amount of shit kids do approaching a certain point that stayed statically void of recollection when he was 13.  
Or, he did now. 

It wasn’t exactly.. noticeable before Mike called. It isn’t too often you’re forced to recall something over a period spanning a single school year and a single following summer vacation. 

But then he realized how inaccurate that assessment was. As an old scar ripped its way across the long healed skin of his left palm, he was nauseatingly filled with the flood of memories that included faces of long lasting childhood friends- Stan, who he’d known first and since childhood had obviously been with him through more than just middle school.  
Then there was the memory of Bill, and Bill’s best friend that he’d brought with him.. His friend... What was his name?  
He tried generating the image of this boy in his head but found himself recycling common facial features to no avail.  
It wasn’t until Mike said his name that some of it hit him. 

—

“Eddie!” He barked in sync with the sure shake of their hands.  
He could feel the crows feet familiarly form on the sides of his eyes with the force of his smile.  
A laugh bubbled out of him as he stood next to a family style table set for seven, still gripping the other man’s hand a second longer than appropriate as he became somewhat overcome with familiarity.  
This hazy outline of a brunette boy clarified almost instantly in thousands of images in his memory, sometimes covered in filth and howling, sometimes laughing like the audio clip of a ridiculous cartoon villain, sometimes deep in consideration with a furrowed brow and intense brown doe eyes staring him down expectantly as they were now.  
Well, perhaps the furrowed brow was more raised in this instance.  
He let him go quickly, almost dropping his hand as the memory of a bridge hit him like an off kilter construction beam.  
All of these missing pieces had all been around the time he realized it, hadn’t they?  
And the key to that epiphany was standing in front of him.  
This man, worry lines already deeply carved in his middle aged face, Eddie Kaspbrak had been his wake up call.  
And here he was.

Married.

—

It was easy to distract himself with how much he could suddenly recall about Derry and how the seven of them all played off each other in this way.  
Able to recall streets and appropriate nicknames for town locations easily where their absence wasn’t even noticed before.  
He felt it, though.  
Each time he was enraptured with another companion’s story he felt that magnet of a man pulling his head’s compass needle back to a frequency it wasn’t previously able to find on its own.  
Not the Earth’s magnetic North he anchored to by default, but the top of the map.  
True North.  
True North was a man in a polo shirt, nervously laughing and clearing his throat only to speak much louder than need be in such a close proximity to the rest of the Losers.  
Richie chuckled, Eds had yelled in place of speaking when they were kids too, hadn’t he? 

True North was hidden behind twenty-seven years of only dating and fucking brunettes. 

True North, obtained by following invisible lines of longitude that this globe had been hiding that were now painted in white that was glowing under a blacklight. Blindingly bright, its only match the many condoms spent in loosely trying to find him in random strangers, committed but temporary boyfriends, and that subtle but aggravating gnawing dissatisfaction he’d subconsciously dealt with for almost three decades.

How could he forget Eddie Kaspbrak? 

—

The clown had been a surprise. Something that they were all on the tip of recalling but simultaneously dreaming just didn’t require remembering.  
Maybe this particular blank space could just stay static.  
The panic that hit him when Bev spoke Its name was so raw that he realized for the first time that he hadn’t had some poetic head rush that caused him to hurl over an alleyway before his most recent set.  
No, it wasn’t anything as beautiful as remembering his old best friend or first love.  
It was pure unadulterated fear.  
Fear of this moment, which his subconscious knew he would have to face again- regardless how deep it was repressed. 

He was almost entirely ready to leave this all to be forgotten again when he passed by Eddie’s door.  
Passed is used loosely here, as his feet more accurately turned to cinderblocks upon hearing even a shuffle coming from the other side of the door and knowing that Eddie was making it. 

He put his duffle bag dumbly by his feet and raised his right hand to the wooden door, speaking before he let his knuckles rap twice softly. 

“Eds?”


End file.
